“But you want to die.” She could barely whisper it as his power surged through her like the darkest tide, calling her back. Slowly, Layla began to return to him like a sleepwalker. Her body was her own; it wasn’t like King Markus’ power hijacking her muscles and nervous system. But feeling Fury drown her as he watched her was like the sweetest nectar flowing through her mind and body. She couldn’t even fathom not coming to him. As she neared, he reached out, stroking his knuckles over her cheek in a manner just like Reginald. But Reginald was far from her as Layla came to Fury – the fire-bright coils of her drakaina’s Bind-magic surging all around him now as their bodies moved close.
“I can’t live this way, Layla…” Fury breathed, a shine of tears in his eyes now even as he watched her with ardor. “I can’t live like this anymore. I’ve tried, for so very long. But my drake wrests himself out of my hands again and again. No matter my intentions; no matter my best efforts. He and I are of two minds, but hewantsto be Bound to you, can’t you feel it? Better for him to be under your control, his power safe in the Bind for your use… than tearing me apart constantly and making me tear apart you and Reginald’s love.”
Stepping close, Layla was riveted by Fury’s eyes as she gazed up at his perfectly sculpted face. He was like some fae god as he gazed down at her, a terrible, beautiful quietude in him even as his eyes shone with fervor. His body thrilled with tension and hers did too as he slipped his fingertips down her neck, stroking her. Eroticism surged in Layla’s veins, her magic coiling around them both.
So fire-bright and hot that Fury’s lips fell open, the silver in his eyes flaring.
Layla could feel his drake now, how enormous it was as it left off sculpting the ocean all around the island. With a surging crash, all that water returned to the sea as Fury’s drake felt the man’s eros rise. It felt their interaction up on the promontory; it was starting to realize what their midnight talk was about – far more than Fury simply joining the Bind.
Fury’s drake wanted to be in the Bind; it wanted to mate with Layla as it began to coil around the glacier. But that was an easy process to its mind. Seduce the drakaina; take the drakaina. But as things dragged on, it had become curious, wanting to know why such a powerful drakaina had been summoned, but not for fucking. The sensation of Fury’s drake was indescribable as it touched Layla, as its silver-dark scales brushed her. She could only tremble like the smallest craft upon the largest sea as that power touched her.
As that power became aware – and cautious of her suddenly.
“Layla…” Fury breathed, his eyes flaring more silver as his long hair flashed in a gust of sea-wind. “You must help me, quickly. My drake is becoming aware of our conversation, and that my aims summoning you tonight are vastly different than his. He does not want to leave my flesh – I cannot kill myself, despite how many times I’ve tried. I need a strong drakaina to help me. Please, Bind me… and then cut me, swift and deep while my drake is distracted.”
But even as Fury pressed a pearl-handled silver knife into Layla’s hand, stroking her neck and mesmerizing her to do as he asked, Layla could feel the immense power of his drake suddenly sharpen in wrath. It didn’t want Fury to die; it didn’t want to go into the cage of pearl he’d constructed for it. It loved being free and doing as it willed inside him.
As Layla felt the wrathful power of Fury’s Siren suddenly surge around the promontory, coiling in tight, she realizedFury would not be able manage his beast this time. After centuries of bad blood between them, he generally banished it from his body now rather than trying to embrace it. The man and the Siren were strangers to each other; strangers living in the same flesh.
And now, they had vastly different aims concerning his life.
Fury’s Siren was a terrible sensation in the night as it roared up with a disastrous intensity all around Layla. A cold, obliterating tide rushed around her as she held the knife, and Layla felt Fury’s Siren coil tight around them both. As the enormous power of his Siren rushed up out of his control, Fury’s incredible beauty froze. One moment, he was himself, and the next, his Siren possessed his eyes entirely. His whole body went rigid as his irises flooded silver.
And then the man was gone, replaced by the beast.
The beast didn’t hesitate. It would have its original agenda any way it could, and it could do so by the sheer volume of its power. Reaching out in a lightning-fast movement, Fury seized Layla’s wrist, and her Dragon suddenly rioted in her veins, raging with scorch as she saw the power and desire in those quicksilver eyes. At first, she thought he was going to kill her for being a threat to Fury’s life. But even as Layla twisted in his grip, crying out and roaring with the sudden overtones of her frightened drakaina, she saw something else in those all-silver eyes. She saw the desires of the Siren fill the man entirely – and that he didn’t desire her death. He wanted her to fight him, to roar and rage with him until they found out who was the stronger master.
And then he wanted her to fuck him – and take him into the Bind, free inside Fury’s flesh.
Layla didn’t even have a moment to gasp as Fury’s hand clenched upon her wrist, twisting the pearl and silver knife from her grip and casting it to the sea. She didn’t even have a moment to cry out as Fury surged up suddenly into his Siren-drake; massive, enormous, flowing and crashing with power as the sea heaved far below in response to his call. One moment he was man and the next he was Siren as he rose up into a creature the likes of which Layla had never known.
He dwarfed the island; he coiled around it even as the bulk of him crushed the promontory upon which they stood. As ice cracked all around Layla in massive retorts, Fury’s Siren seized her with silver-dark talons the length of a whole car. Even as the promontory began to tilt, snapping and breaking with a shriek of wrenching ice, the whole thing sliding towards the ocean, the enormous Siren-drake bent his massive neck, menacing her with its silver-cruel eyes.
Devouring her with its mesmerization and commanding that she take him.
Layla didn’t even think. She was just suddenly surging up into her Dragon as she fought his devastating mind-power with everything she had, knowing how terrible an unrestrained Fury would be for the Bind and everyone in it. Adrenaline and fire spiked in her veins as she changed fast into her drakaina,her skin splitting and roiling, her bones cracking and breaking. In a wash of fire-bright heat, Layla whirled up fast into her Dragon, twining her coils through Fury’s and twisting her body over his eyes to stop him from mesmerizing her.Roaring at him with her furious power, Layla lashed out with a wind to hammer him back.
But Fury’s Siren knew what it wanted.
And with one solid heave, it rolled them off the cliff – crashing them into the ocean below.
CHAPTER 19 – MADNESS
As Layla and Fury plummeted from the icy promontory, she caught one last glimpse of the silver moon and diamond stars, snow shedding from the island’s pinnacle. And then they were hitting the sea, the shock slamming Layla’s system as they crashed into the water. All around, Fury’s massive Siren-drake heaved, securing Layla’s drakaina into the tremendous iron coils of his beast. As the dark ocean rushed in, silver and pearl-black scales devoured Layla’s vision, Fury’s enormous coils surrounding her fire-gold ones everywhere. Even as an endless cold swallowed her, Fury’s body flushed a tremendous heat through the water like a scalding bath. But it was not a nice heat as Layla’s drakaina was wrapped in his crushing power.
Drowned by him.
He didn’t need to fight her; he didn’t want to fight her, not really. He wanted her to succumb to Binding him, and Layla knew with a flash of instinct that he just had to hold on to her long enough that the ocean made her submit. Heaving, struggling, gouging at him with golden talons and savaging bites, both the human inside Layla and the Dragon screamed as she felt herself losing breath, losing life. Fury squeezed her tighter like a boa constrictor, and Layla whipped her head around to his gills fast, as close as she could get as he strangled her underwater. She breathed Fury’s next exhalation like quicksilver in her lungs, sharp and metallic, but life-giving.
Barely.
But as the taste of such a powerful Royal Siren hit her tongue, Layla’s drakaina suddenly roared. She couldn’t fight this Siren-drake, far more massive and powerful than she was. She couldn’t get away, crushed in his coils and drowning. This was no game of sexy revelry like it was with Dusk or Adrian or even Reginald, where danger was a safe thing. As Fury crushed her beneath the waves and Layla struggled as her drakaina, barely allowed sips of air from his gills as he toyed with her, she knew she couldn’t fight him. Her wind-blasts were absorbed by the waves and her fire snuffed out in the black ocean. Even her talons and neck were pinned now as she struggled, kept away from gouging Fury as he secured her deeper, slower, harder beneath the sea.
Layla felt them hit the bottom of the ocean like a death-knell in her veins. As they did, it was suddenly do-or-die as Fury’s massive head snaked away, removing his gills from Layla’s lips and staring her down. His eyes were so bright beneath the blackness of the ocean, like twin stars. Layla struggled but was forced to look at him as he worked his terrible mesmeric magic. As the first wave of silver light flooded up through his beautiful quicksilver-dark body, brightening his eyes a hundredfold, Layla felt his eros hit her.
With the full power of the sea behind it.
Layla didn’t just break; her Bind-power crashed open to Fury’s command as he rolled it through her in the brightest, most impossibly dark wave she’d ever felt. It was bliss and luminous pleasure, it was endless moments of rolling in the deeps, over and over. It was everything he loved about being a Siren, everything he wanted to share with her in that one tremendous moment as he encouraged her to drop her shields and become one with him beneath the deeps.
